


Bhutan

by phoenixnz



Series: Nightwing Chronicles [24]
Category: Batman - Fandom, DCU, Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5442758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixnz/pseuds/phoenixnz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is in prison in Bhutan, trying to survive among different hardships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bhutan

Bhutan

Nights were the worst. It wasn’t just the filthy conditions, or the men in the cell with him. It was the dreams. No matter how much he tried to control it, he kept dreaming of home. Of both the bald and the brunet boyfriend. In his dreams, they were always laughing, having a good time. Working out together. Making love.

Sometimes he would dream that he was visiting Clark on the farm and Clark’s father would hand him a fork or a spade and tell him to get to work. He’d be mucking out the barn, so hot and sweaty that he would be forced to take his shirt off. Clark would come in, looking just as hot and sweaty, which was impossible, since he didn’t feel the heat like Bruce did. He’d take off his shirt, his skin glistening with perspiration, and Bruce would pause in his task and just stare.

God, Clark was so beautiful!

Or he would dream of Lex, lying in his huge four-poster bed, naked and waiting. Bruce would emerge from the shower, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist. Lex would look at him and pull the covers back in silent invitation.

God, he missed Lex.

Sometimes he would wake in the night and hear one of the men fucking another prisoner. Or rather raping him. Conditions were brutal here and the men equally so. The only reason Bruce had managed to avoid attack was because he’d already gained a reputation for his toughness.

More than once, Bruce had gone to get his meal in the main compound, only for one of his fellow prisoners to try to test him. Bruce had landed in solitary more than a few times for his refusal to stand down. He’d beaten the crap out of five inmates before the guards had dragged him off and knocked him unconscious with their batons.

A cold wind blasted through the small window that was his only view of the outside world. If he stood at just the right angle in the cell, he could see through the high window to the mountains. There was snow on the high peaks. Winter was coming.

Bruce shivered and pulled the thin blanket over his shoulders. Blankets were a commodity here, like everything else. The men traded everything, except food. Bruce was still nauseous every time he looked at the food and realised what else was in it, but he still ate it, his stomach churning.

Drug use was rife here. The guards tended to look the other way in exchange for sexual favours. Bruce knew the rules of the game here and had been forced to play it for his thin blanket. The guard had demanded a blow-job in exchange. Unlike his boyfriends, the guard had been brutal, practically choking him and ripping hairs off his head, but Bruce hadn’t said a word.

“No, please!” a man cried out in the native language.

It had taken a couple of months, but Bruce had been able to learn at least part of the language. Enough to get by, at least.

There were harsh words, the sounds of hard smacks. Another rape, another victim. There was no rescue. No big human rights organisation to stop the atrocities.

A week earlier, one of the rape victims had been found hanging in his cell. He’d managed to get a belt from one of the guards. No one cared. It hadn’t stopped the rapes and the warden, or whatever they called him in these parts, just cut the body down and threw it into the icy river.

For a week, Bruce began hearing murmurs from some of the other inmates. The gang was going to come for him that night. They were tired of the arrogant westerner who held himself higher than the rest of them and wanted to take him down a peg or two. Bruce was ready. He pretended to be asleep as the sound of the footsteps echoed off the stone walls.

As soon as they stopped outside his cell, he tensed, listening. One of the men spoke softly, arguing with the others.

“You have seen him. He is strong.”

“I don’t care. He will learn.”

The rest was unintelligible. Bruce cracked open one eye as the argument continued. He could barely see in the darkness. There was no moon tonight. All he saw was what appeared to be five shadows, but he could be wrong.

He got to his feet as the men entered his cell, glaring at them, even knowing it was pointless. The men came at him in a group, hoping to throw him off track. Bruce quickly kicked one in the crotch, then grabbed another one, spinning fast in a circle and using the other man’s weight as momentum, knocking the rest of them down like pins in a bowling alley.

One of the men, obviously the ringleader, growled something Bruce couldn’t make out. Hands reached for him and tried to beat him into submission. He reached blindly, aiming for the eyes, gouging with his thumb, then cracked his head on the forehead of the other. It hurt like hell and made him dizzy for a moment. His technique had been off slightly.

More hands grabbed for him and he lashed out with fists and feet, not caring where they landed.

“Bastard,” one man said, in English this time.

He managed to throw one of the men against the concrete brick wall, hearing a satisfying crack and successive thud as the man fell unconscious to the floor. At least, Bruce hoped he was unconscious.

There were more footsteps and loud voices. A light shone from somewhere, then he was grabbed and hauled off his attackers.

“Solitary for you,” the guard told him.

“Why?” he growled. “I was the one attacked.”

“Protection,” the man growled back.

“I don’t need protection.”

“For them,” the guard said. “From you.”

Bruce had no idea how long he was in solitary for. It could have been a day, or a week. Food was pushed through the gap underneath the door and he ate it without bothering to identify what it was. Hell, it could have been shit for all he knew, but he had to keep his strength up.

He spent hours doing push-ups or sit-ups on the cold concrete floor. When his muscles gave out he stood in the middle of the cell and used Tai Chi, or meditation, trying to follow the philosophies of the ancient martial arts which were supposed to make his heart and mind become one.

Some time later the door opened and the guard gestured for him to come out. He was taken back to his cell where, to his surprise, he found a visitor.

“Bruce Wayne, I presume.”

Bruce frowned at the man, who was aged somewhere in his late forties, his hair a dark blond. He had a moustache which was neatly trimmed and a thin beard.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Henri Ducard. I have come to help you.”

“Don’t need it,” Bruce told him, moving to the bowl on the floor. He got down on his knees and picked up the pewter jug pouring icy cold water into the bowl, then splashing his face. The water stung, but at least it was clean. Somewhat.

“I can get you out of this place,” Ducard told him. He had a cultured accent, probably English, but his name was French.

Bruce didn’t reply.

“How did you find me?” he said.

“I have my sources,” the older man said smoothly. “The world is too small for someone like Bruce Wayne to disappear, no matter how deep he chooses to sink.”

Bruce sneered at him. “I don’t need your help.”

Ducard tilted his chin, as if to look down on Bruce.

“You would prefer to take your chances here?”

“I can hold my own.”

“Yes, so I hear. One of the guards told me you cracked the skull of one of your attackers. The man is still unconscious.”

“Then perhaps they’ll learn not to try to rape me in the middle of the night.” He stood firm. “I appreciate the visit, Mr Ducard, but I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”

“Very well,” the man said. “But if you change your mind, there is a place, at the top of those mountains,” he continued, pointing out the window. “His name is Ra’s al Ghul. The criminal underworld fears him. He can offer you a path. If you can make it there, he can show you that path.”

“I still have at least four years here,” Bruce told him.

“There is a guard. His name is Tenzin. Talk to him.”

Bruce watched Ducard leave and speak to the guard, who nodded when he saw Bruce watching, then walked away.

Life returned to normal, or at least as normal as it could be. Bruce’s notoriety had spread through the prison and most of the inmates avoided him. Even the ones who had tried to rape him.

Bruce barely gave Ducard or even Ra’s al Ghul a moment’s thought. Winter set in. Some of the inmates began to get sick. Bruce fought it as long as he could, but even he was not immune.

Death came calling. Bruce barely registered the guards taking out body after body and throwing them into the almost frozen river. He even failed to notice that among them were at least two of the rape gang. By that time he was so ill with what he suspected was pneumonia that he was half out of his mind with delirium.

He lay shivering on the floor of his cell, barely able to find the strength to move. His body was wet with perspiration, and he alternated between freezing and burning hot.

Bruce heard footsteps echoing along the corridor but they sounded so wrong. It was as if everything was moving at slow speed. He tried to clear his vision as a figure appeared in the doorway, unable to believe what he was seeing. It had to be a hallucination, brought on by his fever.

“Bruce?”


End file.
